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THE STORY OF THE
BOEING B-52 STRATOFORTRESS

The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, in service today, almost sixty years after its first test flight, is one
of the most versatile and successful aircraft ever designed.

Originally
conceived as a replacement for
the Convair B-36, with a long-range, high altitude, free-fall nuclear
delivery mission, it has adapted
over the years to changing technological and political conditions,
assuming a wide variety of tasks and requiring tactics unforeseen by the
engineers and airmen responsible
for its design and procurement in the late 1940s.

Today, it is still flying and fighting, and will probably do so until 2040 or longer. One saying that is popular with today's aircrews is: "The last B-52 pilot hasn't been born!"

The following pages includes details on the following topics:

INITIAL DESIGN

The requirement for a heavy bomber with intercontinental
range dates back to the darkest days of
World War Two, when it was feared that England might fall and the
bases it provided be lost,
necessitating a transatlantic continuation of the war against Hitler.

Although not delivered until after
the war, in 1948, the Convair B-36 was the eventual response to this
requirement, and to the
previously unforeseen challenge posed by the Soviet Union.

By the
time it entered service, however,
technology—especially the emergence of jet fighters—had already
dictated its early obsolescence, and the requirement for its replacement had already been stated in
early 1946, calling for an
unrefueled range of 8000 miles with a 10,000 lb bomb load and a top
speed of 450 mph.

A preliminary design contract was awarded to the
Boeing Company that
year. Boeing had earned an
impressive reputation and considerable expertise in the heavy bomber
field with its highly successful
B-17s and B-29s.

Initially, both Boeing and the Air Force envisioned
this second generation
intercontinental bomber as a turboprop, since pure jet development
had not yet produced an engine
powerful enough, and because the turboprop was more fuel efficient,
translating into greater range.
The company was, in fact, working on a jet-powered medium bomber—the
B-47—but its smaller size
and expected performance did not satisfy the new requirement.

The
design with which Boeing won
this new contract was a conventional one, essentially a B-29 scaled
up to B-36 size with straight
wings and six turboprop engines.

By the Fall of 1948, a number of refinements to
this original design had been made, but the projected
performance was still not much better than that of the improved B-36
it was to replace.

Then, several
events changed the course of its development.

The company responsible
for the engine intended for
the aircraft had encountered difficulties in its development, causing
the program to fall behind.

Concurrently, the Pratt and Whitney Company was making unexpected
progress with a new jet
engine, the J-57, with 10,000 lbs of thrust, a significant advance.

Finally, the potential of in-flight
refueling was greatly increased with the development of the “flying
boom” by Boeing. This
rendered the fuel savings of the turboprop less critical.

During
a visit by senior Boeing officials to
Wright-Patterson AFB to review progress, the Air Force chief of
bomber development asked the
Boeing team to look at the possibility of substituting pure jet
power.

This was on Thursday, 21
October 1948. By coincidence, the Boeing staff present that weekend
included just the right
combination of skills and knowledge to respond to this opportunity.

Closeting themselves in a
Dayton hotel room, with an open line back to the engineering staff
and analysts in Seattle, they
hammered out a new design which was surprisingly like the prototype
which was to roll out of the
factory some three years later.

This was submitted to the Air Force
on Monday, and the B-52 as it
flies today was truly born.

Equally responsible for the dramatic change in direction of the
B-52 design was the unexpected
success Boeing was having with the independent development of the
B-47 medium bomber.

The B-
47 had used essentially off-the-shelf technology in a radical design
which incorporated two World
War Two innovations:

the jet engine and

the swept wing.

Flight
testing going on at that time was
revealing accomplishments beyond all expectations in reducing drag.
The confidence instilled by this
success encouraged Boeing engineers to push the technology envelope
with the B-52.

One lesson
learned was that the thin wing used on the B-47 for stability at
transonic speeds was not essential,
allowing the new design to include a tapered wing—thick and wide
at the root, thin and flexible
further out—and a greatly enlarged wing area.

This, combined with
major weight savings throughout,
resulted in a very high lift over drag ratio, the major factor
in the continuing growth potential of the
aircraft.

DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTION

The first B-52, the XB-52, rolled out on 29 November 1951, and
the first flight, by the second aircraft
built, was on 15 April 1952.

The initial production aircraft, the
B-52A, was delivered to the Air Force
a little over two years later, in June 1954, but only three of
this model were built, none of which found
their way to operational units. They were used as test beds for
further type development and one, the
first, became the launch vehicle for the X-15 rocket-powered experimental
plane.

The first operational model, the B-52B—built
in both bomber and reconnaissance versions — entered
the Air Force operational inventory on 29 June 1955, when 52-8711
was delivered to the 93rd Bomb
Wing at Castle AFB, California.

The B-model was almost identical
to the A, but had an improved
bombing-navigation system in the MA-6A, a generation beyond the
K-system in the B-47 and the B-
52A. Fifty B-52Bs were built before the final one was delivered
on 31 August 1956. It continued to
serve along with later models until 1966.

While the B-52B was still in production, a follow-on
version, the B-52C, made its first flight on 9
March 1956, with delivery to the Air Force some three months later.

There was little external change
from the B-model, but two large 3,000 gallon wing tanks were added.
In addition, the avionics and
bomb-nav systems, the heart of a bomber aircraft, were significantly
upgraded.

Only 35 B-52Cs were
built, and seven months before the last one was delivered, the
B-52D had made its first flight on 14
May 1956. The only difference between the two was a series of strengthening
structural changes.

The
D-model was the core of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) fleet for
a number of years in the late
‘50s and later carried the burden of the conventional bombing
campaign in Southeast Asia.

Changes from the D- to the E-model, first flown on 3 October 1957,
were again internal and
primarily in the bomb-nav systems, giving the aircraft an improved
capability to fly and bomb from
low altitude, reflecting new tactics made necessary by improving
Soviet air defenses.

One hundred Es
were built, followed in 1958 by another 89 F-models, with an upgraded
J-57 engine delivering 13,750
lb of thrust (vice 12,100 for the B- through E-models).

The delivery of the last D-model to the Aerospace Maintenance and
Regeneration Center in Tucson
in October 1983 marked the end of the first generation of B-52s,
all of the earlier models having been
previously retired.

THE B-52G AND H - The 2nd Generation

The second generation had begun with a Boeing proposal in the Spring
of 1956, initiating a program
to capitalize on the proven soundness and growth possibilities
of the B-52 design. In many ways,
what was envisioned was a new airplane, incorporating the basic
airframe structure, but with new
concepts, materials, and systems.

The result was to be increased
range, improved defenses, lower
empty weight, and a decreased maintenance requirement, The B-52G
made its first flight on 31
August 1958. A total of 193 were built, the largest number of any
model of the B-52.

A few of the major modernizations incorporated in the G were:

the “wet
wing,” eliminating fuel
bladders in favor of a sealed wing structure and adding more than
10,000 gallons of internal fuel

an
eight-foot shorter vertical tail, and

a move of the gunner from
his separate pressurized tail
compartment to the forward crew area, with radar and closed circuit
TV operation of his guns.

Ailerons were eliminated and lateral control provided by wing spoilers

The large external wing tanks
of earlier models were replaced by smaller, 700 gallon versions

A wide variety of internal changes
were also made from new hydraulic and fuel management controls
to enhanced crew comfort for long
flights

Finally, the G-model was designed to be a missile platform
as well as a gravity bomb carrier
with the new GAM-77 (later AGM-28) Hound Dog as its intended standoff
weapon and the GAM-
72 (ADM-20) Quail decoy missile to improve its defense penetration
capability.

The B-52Gs were
withdrawn from service in the early 1990s, with the last one being
delivered to the salvage yard in
Arizona on 5 May 1994. They were subsequently destroyed in compliance
with the Strategic Arms
Limitation Treaty of 1991.

The final version of the Stratofortress, the
B-52H, first flew
on 6 March 1961, and was produced
until June 1962, when the 102nd was completed, the newest of the
742 B-52s built.

The primary, and
obvious, changes in the H-model were:

the adoption of the Pratt
and Whitney TF-33 fanjet engine to
replace the J-57 which had been used on every earlier B-52, and

the replacement of the four machine
guns in the tail by a six-barrel, 20 mm M61 (T-171 model) Vulcan
Gatling gun.

In addition, advanced
avionics were incorporated to permit lower, more precise terrain-hugging
penetration of defenses and
target acquisition.

MODERNIZATION

Over its long operational life, the B-52 has undergone an extensive
series of retrofits and
modernizations. As its role changed from high altitude bomber to
low level penetrator, the additional
stress of prolonged flight in turbulent air required a number of
structural modifications to strengthen
the airframe.

In a rapidly advancing technological environment,
the Stratofortress has gone through
several generations of electronic countermeasures systems, and
the G- and H-model B-52s had dual
chin turrets added housing low-light television and infrared sensors
which allow precise navigation
and bombing under any light conditions.

The Hound Dog standoff
missile was supplanted in the
early ‘70s by the AGM-69 Short Range Attack Missile (SRAM).
In the ‘80s,
large segments of the
fleet were configured to carry the AGM-86 Air-Launched Cruise Missile
(ALCM).

Subsequent
weapons upgrades added:

the AGM-84 Harpoon

the AGM-142 Have Nap

the AGM-86B
conventional warhead version of the ALCM

the AGM-129A Advanced
Cruise Missile

the CBU-
87/89/97 family of cluster munitions

the CBU-103-105 Wind Corrected
Munitions Dispensers

the
GBU-31/32 Joint Direct Attack Munition

the AGM-154 Joint Standoff
Weapon, and

the AGM-158
Joint Air-to-Surface Stand-Off Missile to the BUF’s arsenal.

In addition, there have been significant
improvements in both offensive and defensive avionics.

EMPLOYMENT

The B-52 was initially fielded as a long-range
nuclear bomber, and that was its primary role from
1955 to 1991. Tactics have changed from high altitude to low altitude
penetration to standoff attack,
and the aircraft’s inherent flexibility has enabled it to meet
these changing demands.

Although never
called upon to execute this nuclear mission, its capability and
destructive potential are recognized as
the key elements in the Western Alliance’s success in waging
the Cold War.

For several generations
of aircrew, the physical demands of extended training missions
in its cramped confines under all
flight conditions, alternating with the stress and boredom of 15-minute
response ground alert,
involving as high as 50 percent of the force at all times, was
a way of life.

Beginning in 1958, SAC
practiced an airborne alert concept which kept some B-52s, fully
loaded with weapons, in the air at all
times on flights as long as 26 hours, supported by multiple aerial
refuelings.

The tactic ensured the
survival of a retaliatory force regardless of the degree
of surprise achieved by an enemy attack. A
month-long, intensified airborne alert during the Cuban missile
crisis in 1962 was the significant
factor in preventing its escalation into a U.S.-Soviet confrontation. Armed
airborne alert flights were terminated in 1968.

On
June 18, 1965, the B-52 dropped its first bomb in anger when a
force of 27 B-52Fs struck an enemy stronghold known as the Iron
Triangle in South Vietnam. This began the eight-year-long
Arclight operation in support of the war in Southeast Asia.

Before
the final mission by B-52Gs
against a storage area in Cambodia on August 15, 1973, 126,615
B-52 sorties were flown from Guam
and Thailand.

The majority of these were against targets
in South Vietnam and employed carpet
bombing by, typically, two three-ship cells releasing together,
saturating an area a mile and a half long
long and a half mile wide with more than 80 tons of high explosive
bombs.

The effect on the ground
was dramatic, and enemy prisoners repeatedly cited this as the
attack they feared the most.

The F models
which initiated the campaign were soon withdrawn and replaced by
the D, which contributed
the bulk of the effort, supplemented by B-52Gs for major operations.

During 1966, the B-52Ds
received the “Big Belly” modification which provided
for denser loading of the bomb bay,
increasing the internal weapon load from 27 to 84 500 lb bombs.
With the 24 carried on wing
pylons, this gave it a total capacity of 108, or 54,000 pounds—compared
to 17,600 pounds for the B-
17G of World War Two.

The Vietnam War culminated with the so-called
Eleven-Day War, or
Linebacker II, a concentrated
bombing campaign against military targets in the Haiphong-Hanoi
area of North Vietnam, from
December 18-29, 1972. A force of B-52Ds and Gs flow a total of
729 sorties against 24 target
complexes delivering 15,000 tons of bombs. Fifteen B-52s were shot
down by surface-to-air
missiles, and B-52 gunners were credited with two MiGs destroyed
and three more claimed, but not
confirmed.

Twenty-seven days after the final mission of Linebacker
II, the North Vietnamese signed
the peace accords that led eventually to the end of American participation
in the War in Southeast
Asia.

The last B-52 strike in South Vietnam was on
28 January 1973, though operations continued
over Laos and then Cambodia for another seven months.

Throughout the Vietnam/Southeast Asia conflict, the Cold War continued.
While their sister ships
flew hot missions in Asia, other BUFs—mostly Gs and Hs—continued
their deterrent nuclear alert.
And this continued through the ‘80s as the aircraft and their
weapons were modernized to keep pace
with advancing technology.

The dedication and steadfastness of
the SAC crew members who had
been the tip of our nuclear sword for forty years was rewarded
in November 1989 with the opening
of the wall separating east and west Germany, the symbolic sign
of their victory in the long conflict.

On 27 September 1991, the B-52 bomber force
stood down from nuclear alert. Ever since its first use in a conventional delivery capacity early
in the Vietnam War, however, this
potential in the B-52 had been increasingly explored and developed.

It wasn’t long after the end of
the prolonged confrontation with the Soviet Union that it would
be employed again. In August of 1990, less than a year after the wall came down in
Germany, Iraq invaded its neighbor,
Kuwait.

After a period of build up by U.S. led Coalition forces,
including the deployment of twenty
B-52Gs to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, and repeated demands
for Iraqi withdrawal, hostilities
to restore the independence of Kuwait were initiated on the night
of 17 January 1991.

Seven B-52s
took off from Barksdale AFB armed with conventional warhead air
launched cruise missiles
(CALCM), flew to the Middle East, launched their weapons against
command and control facilities in
Baghdad, and returned to their home base.

During the war that followed,
Desert Storm, B-52s
operating from Diego Garcia, RAF Fairford in England, Moron AB
in Spain, and Jeddah AB in
Saudi Arabia flew 1741 sorties, delivering more than 27,000 tons
of bombs.

Seventy-four out of the
90 G-models active at the time participated, attacking strategic
targets, SCUD missile sites, and enemy
infantry/armor formations. They were also given a new mission: “breaching
operations,” in which
their string of concentrated high explosive bombs were used to
blast passages through the minefields
through which attacking Coalition forces had to pass.

At home, the modernization program described
above continued, as
well as a drawdown of Cold War
forces. The Strategic Air Command was inactivated in June 1992,
with the B-52s transferred to the
new Combat Air Command. In May, as noted above, the Gs were gone
from the force, and in
November, the last Stratofortress departed from KI Sawyer AFB,
leaving only two B-52 fields open,
Barksdale in Louisiana and Minot in North Dakota.

Following the First Persian Gulf War, the USAF
retained a presence in the Middle East and on
Diego Garcia. The principle mission was:

to compel Iraq to comply
with UN Security Council
Resolution 687, which called for UN inspections of Iraqi weapons-making
potential, and

to prevent a
threatening Iraqi military buildup in the southern and northern
areas of their territory.

B-52s were
called into action again in 1996 when two B-52Hs flying from Guam
launched 13 CALCMs against
the Iraqi air defense network. This was the first employment of
the H-model in combat.

Meanwhile, in the adjustments to the breakup of the Soviet Bloc,
another hot spot was created in the
Balkans. In the former Yugoslavia, old ethnic divisions were resurfacing.
In order to retain control of
Kosovo, the Serbs were applying increasing force to suppress the
Albanian and Moslem majorities in
the province.

In early 1998, full scale fighting began, and the
UN intervened, arranging a cease fire
and “safe havens.” Violence continued, however, and
a peace conference aimed at a permanent
solution broke up on 19 March 1999.

In response, NATO set in motion
Operation Allied Force (Noble Anvil was the American component action) on 24 March.
In preparation, eight B-52Hs had arrived at RAF Fairford on 21/22
February. On the morning of 24
March, hostilities were commenced with the launch of eight BUFs
from Fairford (including two
spares) to strike the Serb armed forces in Kosovo with CALCMs.

As the war progressed, B-52
operations switched from missile launches to conventional freefall
bombs. Heavy B-52 raids
continued until the signing of a peace agreement on 9 June.

The War on Terrorism, which had been building up
for two decades, was launched suddenly on the
morning of 11 September 2001 with the destruction of the Trade Center
and the attack on the Pentagon. Once again, the
B-52 was in the vanguard of America’s response.

Operation Enduring Freedom was begun on 7 October to destroy al-Qaeda
bases in Afghanistan and
to bring down the oppressive Taliban regime which harbored them.

In the first day’s strike, B-52s
were employed along with B-1s and B-2s, carrier based air, and
ship launched Tomahawk missiles.
In the following months, which would stretch into years, B-52s
based on Diego Garcia struck known
Taliban positions and targets of opportunity, and carried out close
air support and propaganda leaflet
drops.

Further west, the confrontation with the Iraqi government over
disarmament and weapons inspections
continued. Finally, there was a United Nations coalition decision
to invade the country and replace the
regime. Hostilities commenced during the night of 21 March 2003,
when more than 1000 air strikes
were carried out within the first few hours.

The B-52 was again
a major contributor to the “shock
and awe” punch. During the 28 days of the air war leading
to the fall of Baghdad, 28 B-52s took
part, taking off from Fairford and Diego Garcia to deliver CALCMs,
conventional bombs, precision
guided bombs (including the first combat release of a laser guided
bomb using the Litening Pod), and
leaflets.

As combat operations are prolonged in both Afghanistan and Iraq,
the B-52 continues to play its part,
largely by providing close air support to troops in contact, with
the GPS guided GBU-31/32 Joint
Direct Attack Munition as the weapon of choice. The BUF presently
carries 12.

Most recently the B-52 has been called on once again to signal
US determination and readiness. In
the light of increased Chinese and North Korean military posturing,
Stratoforts have returned to their
old Vietnam base of operations, Andersen AFB on Guam, as part of
a continuous deployed bomber
presence forward in the Pacific.

After more than fifty years of hot and cold war service, the Boeing
B-52 remains one of the most
versatile, lethal, and feared weapons in the US’s Global Power
arsenal.

Home Bases

Today, the B-52 flies from two bases: Barksdale, LA and Minot, ND. Aircraft and crews also rotate to Andersen, Guam and provide a year-round presence in that area of the Pacific Ocean. Bases at RAF Fairford, UK and Diego Garcia, Indian Ocean can and have been used to support its world-wide reach as required.